Word: diplomatic
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Ovitz orchestrated the merger with cool precision. To avoid the bickering that marred the Columbia deal, he handpicked the law firm, investment bankers and public-relations agents to represent Matsushita. He then served as a shuttle diplomat between the two companies, anticipating problems before they could grow. When the merger was clinched, Ovitz joined the army of 100 dealmakers at Matsushita's law firm in Manhattan for a 9:15 a.m. champagne toast. For Ovitz's work on the merger, Matsushita could eventually pay CAA as much as $40 million. The sum aroused the green-eyed envy of deal-starved...
Behind Thatcher's full skirts hid skeptics on issues ranging from the abolition of all border controls, to a single currency by 1994, to free immigration within the European Community. "It was easy for certain countries to sit back and let her do the talking," said a senior E.C. diplomat. "She would take the political risks in saying what some others also thought." West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, for example, may have to come out in the open in slowing down the movement toward a common E.C. currency, a goal heatedly opposed by Thatcher and Kohl's own Bundesbank...
...quickly erased, but government authorities know that all the whitewash in the world cannot obliterate the sentiment they express. "To be anti-U.S. and pro-Arab nationalism is what people in Syria have been groomed for, and it's very difficult to shake off," says a Western diplomat in Damascus. "This feeling is all of the government's making, and now it doesn't serve their purposes...
Assad's allies profess not to be worried. "It's what the Syrians do, not what they say, that counts," says a Western diplomat. That point was emphasized earlier this month, when the first of 300 Syrian tanks and other armored vehicles arrived at the Saudi port of Yanbu. Assad had agreed to the shipment in September but claimed that transportation problems had delayed the deployment. Though Western diplomats initially dismissed that excuse, they now believe Assad and are confident that Damascus will honor its original commitment to send its entire 9th Armored Division, totaling...
...Washington has promised Israel. For the first time the U.S. is to supply Jerusalem with Patriot missile systems, which will greatly strengthen Israel's antiaircraft defenses. Such unqualified U.S. support for Jerusalem makes Assad's alignment with Washington all the harder to sell at home. But at least one diplomat in Damascus believes Syrian authorities may be inflating their assessments of the domestic opposition to convince Washington of the need to downplay relations with Israel. Damascus has asserted that if Jerusalem gets involved in any conflagration in the region, it will quickly switch sides. Said a government official: "Against Israel...